Alexander the Great (3)

Alexander the Great (*356; r. 336-323):
the Macedonian
king who defeated his Persian colleague Darius
III Codomannus and conquered the Achaemenid
Empire. During his campaigns, Alexander visited a.o. Egypt, Babylonia,
Persis, Media,
Bactria,
the Punjab, and the valley of the Indus. In the second half of his reign,
he had to find a way to rule his newly conquered countries. Therefore,
he made Babylon
his capital and introduced the oriental court ceremonial, which caused
great tensions with his Macedonian and Greek officers.

This is the third of a series of articles. A complete
overview can be found here
and a chronological table of his reign can be found here.

Kesik tepe: perhaps the tomb of Achilles

Beginning of the Persian Campaign

To Asia

In Asia, the war was not going well. The commander of the Persian mercenaries
Memnon
of Rhodes had been able to push back Parmenion,
but the latter was still in Asia when Alexander crossed the Hellespont
with a large army in May 334. Alexander
visited Troy, where he and his closest friend Hephaestion
seem to have taken part in funeral games for the homeric heroes Achilles
-an ancestor of Alexander- and Patroclus.
This was the customary thing to do: the Spartan king Agesilaus,
who had invaded Asia sixty years before, had done more or less the same
(text). From
the Trojan temple of Athena, the king took a sacred shield, which saved
Alexander's life in India (below).

Meanwhile, the Persian satraps
of Cilicia,
Lydia,
Hellespontine Phrygia and other territories had assembled at Zelea, near
Dascylium. They did not know what to do: Memnon
proposed to avoid battle and to burn all crops, destroy the grass and horse
feed, and even gut the towns. Alexander, who was short of supplies, would
be forced to return. Later, the Persian navy could attack the Macedonians
at home. This was probably the best idea, but the other commanders agreed
that it was better to fight.

The Granicus

Alexander and Parmenion moved in their direction,
convinced that it would be an easy battle: after all, the Macedonians were
superior in numbers and equipment. In June, the two armies met near the
river Granicus (the modern Biga Çay). The Persians had occupied
strong defensive positions on one of the banks, which forced Alexander
to attack from a difficult angle. Most ancient sources agree that Parmenion
advised Alexander not to attack and that it was Alexander's own idea to
attack at once.

Battle at the Granicus

Our sources disagree on what happened next. Diodorus
of Sicily writes that Alexander accepted Parmenion's advise; all other
authorities agree that the Macedonians attacked immediately. The difference
between these sources is that Diodorus uses the now lost History of
Alexander by Cleitarchus
as his source, and the others are based on the Deeds of Alexander
by Callisthenes
of Olynthus, Alexander's court historian. Callisthenes had reasons
to be hostile to Parmenion, and Cleitarchus' description of the battle
is to be preferred. It is probable that the Macedonian king followed the
instructions of the experienced general.

The Granicus

There were good reasons to do so. The Persians never marched before
they had made the dawn sacrifices, and this offered the Macedonians a fine
chance to move to the other bank during the night. The Persians knew that
they did not stand a chance against the Macedonian phalanx,
and launched a cavalry charge. They hoped to outflank the Macedonians and
attack their rear. However, Parmenion caught their charge. Alexander's
archers and Agrianians (light infantry) were sent against Memnon's Greek
mercenaries and seem to have prevented this regiment from joining the main
battle. The decisive charge was led by Alexander, who, with his Companions,
broke through the Persian battle array, in which the Persian cavalry attack
had caused a gap. For one moment, Alexander was in danger, but Clitus
saved his life. After this charge, the battle was in fact over: the Macedonian
phalanx made quick work of the Greek mercenaries (text).

Summer

The official motive for the expedition to Asia was to liberate the Greek
cities in the Achaemenid empire and to punish the Persians for the expedition
of Xerxes, a century
and a half ago. The Greek towns had been liberated before, after the battle
of Mycale
in 479, but the Persians had reoccupied them when the Greeks were divided
(during the Peloponnesian
War, 431-404); the Spartans had tried to free them at the beginning
of the fourth century, but had negotiated the towns away when they signed
a peace treaty with the Persians in 387/386; Parmenion had captured the
Greek towns in Asia in 336, but Memnon had reoccupied them. Now that the
Persian armies in Turkey had been defeated, it was Alexander's turn to
play the role of liberator.

This was, however, less easy than it seemed. To govern these towns,
the Persians had made use of the rich local aristocracies; Alexander may
have wanted to employ members of the elite too, but could not rely upon
them. He was therefore compelled to establish democracies in the Greek
towns of Asia (text),
an act that was not to win him much approval from his Greek allies, which
were mostly oligarchic.

The citadel of Sardes

A second, more ominous step was the appointment of satraps. Immediately
after the battle at the Granicus, Alexander appointed a Macedonian trustee
as satrap of Hellespontine Phrygia, and not much later, Asander, a brother
of Parmenion, became satrap of Lydia. This is remarkable: if Alexander
wanted to liberate the Greek towns in Asia, there was no need to appoint
governors. It meant that Alexander wanted to rule, not to liberate the
towns. He also started to levy taxes from the towns, which he called 'contributions
to the war' - an euphemism for tribute.

Parmenion captured Dascylium,
the capital of Hellespontine Phrygia; our sources say that it fell without
struggle, but this is contradicted by the archaeological evidence. After
this, Alexander received the surrender of the Lydian capital Sardes, which
was proverbially rich.
Here he rededicated the temple of Zeus, which the Persians had used to
sacrifice to their supreme god Ahuramazda.
The future garrison of Sardes consisted of Greek soldiers and it needs
to be stressed that this is typical: although Alexander's crusade was presented
as a punishment for Xerxes' invasion of Greece, the Greeks played only
a minor role. The fighting was done by Macedonians, the Greeks were only
used to garrison towns or to guard the lines of communication. And of course,
the Greek soldiers were hostages for the good behavior of their home towns.

The capture of Sardes enabled Alexander, who had had to make debts in
the year of his accession and, to pay his men. His first gold coins showed
an eagle and may commemorate an omen that Alexander received during the
siege of Miletus, which followed a month later.

Priene, Alexander's
house

So far, the expedition had been successful, but there were great difficulties
ahead. The largest Greek city on the eastern shore of the Aegean sea was
Miletus; it had an excellent harbor and the Persians could send in as much
men and provisions as they liked, because they had more ships than Alexander.
The governor of the city had considered surrender, but when he heard that
400 Persian ships were approaching, he decided to stand his ground. For
the first time, Alexander's men faced serious fighting. During this stage
of the war, the Macedonian king stayed at Priene, where he founded a new
temple.

Miletus and environs

Alexander was lucky: his admiral Nicanor (a brother
of Parmenion) occupied the small island Lade
with 160 ships. This island commanded the entrance to the harbor of Miletus.
Three days later, the Persian navy arrived. But the ships were too late:
they could not enter Miletus and were forced to anchor off Cape Mycale,
too far to help the besieged town, but close enough to see how Alexander's
siege engines made breaches in the walls and how the Macedonians took the
city. Now that Miletus had fallen, there was nothing left to do for the
Persian navy, and the ships went south to Halicarnassus.